THE DOVE IN HACKNEY AND THE DOVETAIL IN CLERKENWELL, TO HOLD BELGIAN BEER FETES IN SUPPORT OF EAST LONDON’S ST.JOSEPH’S HOSPICE

Why do we want to do it?

We love the products we sell; our collection of Belgian beers is the finest available in the UK. We stock over 101 bottle Belgian Beers with 14 on draught at The Dovetail and 12 on draught at The Dove Freehouse and Kitchen. We want to help our customers to learn to love our different beers as much as we do. In the funnest manner possible we want to educate our customers to understand the taste and range of styles available and how to pair the different styles with our delicious food.

Belgian Beer Fete

So following on from the huge success and popularity of our previous Belgian Beer fetes Dove Pubs in association with Cave Direct, the specialist beer importer, are delighted to announce two events on 17th and 18th July at the Dovetail in Clerkenwell and The Dove Freehouse and Kitchen in Broadway Market, Hackney.

On a run up to the two big days there is an opportunity to win the star prize and a chance for those who cannot attend on the days to win. For one lucky pair we have teamed up with the lovely people from Huyghe Brewery to offer a trip on Eurostar to Ghent on 14/15th of September 2012 staying in a four star hotel http://www.ghent-river-hotel.be/, with a private tour of the Delirium brewery on Friday afternoon. From 1st July to 20th July on the purchase of any Delirium; Tremens, Nocturnum or Red entrants will be given a Dove card and will be directed to our website to enter into the draw which will take place on Belgian National Day 21st July

What happens at Fete?

On 17th the whole of the Dovetail will be taken over and on 18th the dining rooms of The Dove Freehouse and Kitchen with decorated market stalls and will feature the following:

Exotic Beer Stall

Featuring the wonderful Fair-trade and organic beers of the Mongozo brewery.

Old beer-making traditions and new brewing methods have been combined by Mongozo to produce new and exotic beers. At The Dove we stock: coconut, banana and mango along with the Award winning Pilsner the first gluten free organic and fair trade beer. Ingredients, recipes and drinking customs from all corners of the world, including Ghana, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Costa Rica and Brazil, are brought together in the different flavours of Mongozo beer. The exotic fruit beers and the pilsner beer are entitled to display the Max Havelaar–Fairtrade logo. Max Havelaar is the independent certification organisation behind the Fairtrade Mark. Fairtrade means just that: a fair trade. This means that Mongozo uses ingredients purchased from farmers in developing countries for a fair price. This enables the farmers and their families to take control of their businesses and to work towards a brighter future. More information can also be found at: http://www.info.fairtrade.net.

Trappist Beer Stall

Out of all the beers in the world, only seven of them can use the name ‘Trappist’: Achel, Chimay, La Trappe, Orval, Rochefort, Westvleteren and Westmalle. You can recognize them from the “Authentic Trappist Product” logo. A Trappist beer is only given this name if it satisfies a number of strict criteria: the beer is brewed within the walls of a Trappist abbey, by the monks themselves or under their supervision, The brewery must be controlled by the monastery and have a business culture compatible with the monastic project and the purpose of the brewery is not to make a profit. The income takes care of the livelihood of the monks and the upkeep of the abbey site. What is left over is used for charitable purposes, social work and people in need. The Trappist breweries produce beers of an impeccable quality that is permanently controlled. Westmalle Trappist contains 100% natural ingredients.

Draught Beer Stall

Since 1856, six generations of the same family have steered the brewery with one single goal in mind: offer superior beer both in quality and in taste while respecting the traditional brewery art. The De Halve Mann (Half Moon) brewery is the only remaining brewery to make beer in Bruges.

The legend behind Brugse Zot (silver award winner at BISA Bira Tel Aviv 2011) was to welcome Maximilian of Austria to their proud town. The people of Bruges organised a colourful parade of merrymakers and fools. When they asked him at the end of the day to provide money for a new madhouse he replied: ‘Today I have seen nothing but fools. Bruges is already one large madhouse!’ Since then the people of Bruges are called ‘Brugse Zotten’ (fools of Bruges). Hence the brewery uses the symbol of a jester. A darker version of the town beer Bruges Zot Dubbel (gold award winner at BISA Bira Tel Aviv 2011) has been created. It is brewed with 6 special kinds of malt, which give the beer a rich taste. The world renowned Czech Saaz hop from Zatec has been chosen to give the beer this unique bitter note. Brugse Zot double is a full and stronger beer, highly appreciated by the beer lovers.

West Flanders Beer Stall

A collection of beers to showcase the different styles of excellent beers from the region; wit, sour red, gueuze, rose beer, amber beer, dark beer, strong blonde and triple. http://www.beerinflanders.be

The Dove Food Stall

Food to pair with the beers will be available from The Dove Food stall. All our food is made with fresh, tasty ingredients on the premises. Specialist products will be available such as Westmalle cheese – not readily available in the UK.

Staff from the breweries, The Dove and Cave Direct will be on hand to talk and answer questions about the breweries, the history of the brewing processes, the production processes and tasting suggestions and notes.

Finer Details

We do not charge for this event. We ask all participants to make a minimum £10.00 contribution to our local charity, St Joseph’s Hospice whose excellent work has helped and continues to help terminally ill patients in East London for over 100 years, http://www.stjh.org.uk.

Booking in advance is not required and entry will be on a first come first served basis.

On entering the market you will “buy” a book of coupons for beer and food, the customer chooses which products they would like to use the coupons on. Each customer will also receive a raffle ticket for entry into the tombola prizes. There will be a cornucopia of Belgian beer goodies to give away to the lucky winners.

Harbour Brewing Co

The Harbour Brewing Co was started in 2011 by Bretheyr Rhys Powell and Eddie Lofthouse who share a passion for beer and surfing, both with the dream of opening their own brewery. Rhys had taken steps to make his dream a reality studying Brewing and Distilling at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, and having taken a position as a brewer at Sharps Brewery in Rock, North Cornwall. Eddie had been running the family business, The Atlantic Hotel and Doom Bar in New Polzeath, Cornwall, for a number of years. The Hotel and bar closed in early 2011 and is due to be rebuilt as a new hotel, apartment, restaurant and bar complex. This provided a perfect time to make a career change.

In early 2011, they decided to take the dream a little further. they met in a pub in Padstow and decided they would open a brewery. The first thing they did was celebrate by drinking a few beers and deciding a name. It seemed a good idea to name ourselves after the place the idea was conceived, and Harbour Brewing Company was born. Starting from scratch, the opportunity was there to install a brewery system with the versatility to allow the brewing to be as creative as possible. Eddie found a 10 British Brewers Barrel (bbl) system designed in California, and built in Hungary, by the American firm Bavarian Brewing Technologies.

About Harbour Brewing Company

Harbour Brewing Company is a small craft brewery based in North Cornwall. they are committed to making beers that are contemporary and deliver an uncompromising taste experience. they use pure Cornish spring water sourced on the hillside next to the brewery, and only the finest raw materials. they believe this is the only way to deliver a premium quality product.

they apply a progressive and innovative approach in both beer style and brewing technique, whist honoring traditional and proven methods. Using this approach they aim to produce a range of full flavoured, balanced and creative beers.

Chimay

Chimay Brewery (“Bières de Chimay”) is a beer brewery and monastery in Chimay, southern Hainaut, Belgium.

The brewery is located in the Scourmont Abbey, a Trappist monastery, and is one of the seven breweries worldwide that produce Trappist beer. They make three widely distributed ales: Chimay Rouge, Chimay Bleue, and Chimay Blanche.

Chimay is an authentic Trappist beer. That means that it is brewed within the walls of a Trappist monastery under the control and responsibility of the community of monks, and whose revenue is devoted to social service.

Just a quick Friday blog post come tell me what you want…

We now have stock control on the site, so, if a product is out of stock, it says “Out of Stock”; if there is 5 or less left, the site shows there are less than 5 bottles left. Like wise, if we get something rare and special in, we can limit or even discount for 6 bottles, through to 24 or more…

Now what I can do, is set the site to hide a product whilst it’s out of stock? Would you like that? But, then, that stops the chance of registering for an announcement email when it’s back in stock… also stops the chance that people searching for the product on google, or on the site and their chance of discovery…

I can of course hide products/breweries manually – like Alesmith – which I doubt we shall be having again… (but fingers crossed, we’ll see it again). But, then do I just turn off the beer, rather than the brewery, since it’s interesting to read about the breweries we have/had?

So, I am throwing it open to you all dear Twitter, Facebook and hooman friends to help me with a “policy”, whilst we look at a technological solution, allowing you to browse only in-stock products…